


More Than the Stars in the Sky

by Who_Needs_Reality



Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-08-08 13:56:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7760407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Who_Needs_Reality/pseuds/Who_Needs_Reality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collected Drabbles & Tumblr Prompts</p><p>
  <i>Ch. 4: Bellarke in Paris. Angst, fluff & dancing.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Ch. 5: Bellarke canonverse first kiss spec.<i></i></i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shooting Star

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this](http://skyprincessbellamy.tumblr.com/post/145645500656/send-a-number-or-2-and-a-pairing-and-ill-try) prompt. Also on [tumblr](http://skyprincessbellamy.tumblr.com/post/145732623901/bellarke-15-and-7)
> 
> Set Post S3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've saved the world, and Bellamy and Clarke have sorted out just about everything they could. Except, that is, themselves. Based on [this](http://skyprincessbellamy.tumblr.com/post/145645500656/send-a-number-or-2-and-a-pairing-and-ill-try) prompt. Also available on [tumblr](http://skyprincessbellamy.tumblr.com/post/145732623901/bellarke-15-and-7).

Clarke staggered away from the throng of people, her legs oddly unsteady. They were safe. They were done. Everything felt oddly off-kilter, as though by finally shedding the burden of finding the safe 4% of land, she’d lost her centre of balance. Still, it was better than the constant pressure to ensure the survival of her people, the constant fear that her friends would die. She sank to the ground, suddenly exhausted. The grass was soft and spongy, and the sky felt bigger from where she sat.

She closed her eyes, allowing the crisp evening breeze to brush her face.

  
“Hey.”

  
She opened her eyes and glanced upward. It was Bellamy, smiling tentatively, holding two glasses.  
“Hey,” she returned his smile, the sight of him bringing a rush of warmth to her chest. 

He cleared his throat as he sat down beside her. “I- uh- I thought we could finally get that drink.” His grin was lopsided, wry, and she laughed as she took the glass from him.

  
“What are we toasting to?”

  
He considered for a moment. “Is it too clichéd if I say ‘new beginnings’?”

  
She quirked her lip. “I think it fits. To new beginnings.”

  
“To new beginnings.”

  
They clinked glasses and drank. Clarke spluttered. “Did…did Monty and Jasper build a brewery  _already_?”

  
Bellamy laughed, and Clarke realised with a pang how rarely he did. “Start as you mean to go on, I guess.”

  
“I can’t argue with that.”She sipped more carefully this time, straining the moonshine through her teeth.

“So, what were you doing back here? Not in the mood for parties?” Bellamy’s tone was sardonic, and she had to smile, because she could tell he  _understood_. 

She shrugged. The festivities were meant to celebrate the foundation of Nova, the settlement that Skaikru had built on the newly discovered safe land.   
“It just feels so strange.”

He nodded. “I’m not used to this… Not having to fight anymore.” His voice cracked when he said “sometimes I think that’s all I’m good at.”

Clarke felt her brow furrow. “You don’t give yourself enough credit.” She glanced over at the settlement. It was rudimentary and basic, clusters of buildings around a central courtyard, but sturdy, safe. Permanent. “You did that.”

He snorted. “It was a group effort, Clarke, everyone pitched in.”

“You oversaw the whole thing. It would have crashed and burned without you at the helm, and you know it.”

He ducks to hide a smile, and, Clarke realises with delight, a blush.“Hey, there’d have been nothing to build if you hadn’t led us to the safe land first.”

“I think we both know we did that  _together_ , Bell.” They exchanged another smile at that, oddly shy. Clarke felt, for the umpteenth time, absurdly grateful for Bellamy.

She told him so, and he laughed uncertainly. “Okay, Clarke,” was all he said, shaking his head gently. 

“Hey, just because  _you_  refuse to give yourself any credit doesn’t mean I can’t.”

He just gave a quick nod, and on an impulse Clarke pecked him on the cheek, though she kind of missed, and landed on his jaw. He swallowed, and she saw his throat move.

“What do we do now?” he said.

“Huh?”

“I mean…” he raked a hand through his hair, and for a wild moment, Clarke longed to reach out and do the same, “did you ever think about what would happen when we made it? When we were safe and we didn’t have to spend every waking moment trying to keep everyone alive?”

She put her head on his shoulder. “I don’t know. We’ll figure it out, I guess.”

He turned to kiss her temple, and his mouth moved against her hair when he said, “I guess we will.”

 

And that, for some reason was enough. There he was, warm and comfortable and  _Bellamy_ , and there was nothing left to be done, so Clarke almost didn’t think about it as she curved round to kiss him on the lips. It was soft and chaste, a question more than a statement, but her heart was racing as she pulled back. Bellamy froze rigid, stunned for a moment, and Clarke grew nervous. She smiled ruefully, starting to apologise, but then he surged forward and kissed her, for real this time, catching her face in his hand and tilting her up to meet him. She found it hard to respond because she was smiling so widely, but it was  _perfect_ , and she burrowed her face into his neck, laughing softly.

“Did you… Clarke, I… it wasn’t…”

“Slow down, Bellamy.”

“I love you,” he said, and she laughed again, because he looked appalled, like blurting it out was the last thing he meant to do.

“I love you too,” she said, "you should already know that," and she tucked herself into his side.

 

It could have been minutes or it could have been hours before he nudged her gently and pointed skywards.  “Look,” he whispered.  
A star streaked across the sky, an actual shooting star, silver and shimmering, trailing light as it soared.

  
“A real one this time,” Clarke noted smiling, “I know you can wish on this kind.” She glanced at Bellamy, the star reflected in his eyes. “Any ideas on what to wish for yet?” she teased.

  
He grinned back at her, broadly and beautifully, and fuck, in that moment he was more beautiful than the star. “I’m good for now, Princess.”

  
Clarke knew the feeling.

 


	2. Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miller doesn't hate it when people get crushes, he just hates it when Bellamy does, because it's annoying. And now, Bellamy is more annoying than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on [this](http://skyprincessbellamy.tumblr.com/post/145645500656/send-a-number-or-2-and-a-pairing-and-ill-try) tumblr prompt. Also on [tumblr](http://skyprincessbellamy.tumblr.com/post/145732623901/bellarke-15-and-7)

Nathan Miller was kind of used to communal living by this point. It had started with just him and his roommate, Bellamy. Then Monty had moved in with them, and obviously that was great, because it gave Miller 24/7 access to his boyfriend, so that was always a plus. The three of them existed in a peaceful cycle, Miller and Monty had their room, Bellamy had his, there was a chore wheel and a sensible budgeting plan, their social lives were all compatible. Everything was great. And then Bellamy had to go and get his stupid crush. 

Miller had nothing against crushes per se- he’d harboured a deeply repressed crush on Monty for days before finally asking him out. What Miller hated was Bellamy having crush. Look, Bellamy was Miller’s best friend, and he really was a great guy. He was a grump sarcastic nerd, which was pretty cool actually, and he was also kind of an antisocial asshole, but then so was Miller. The problem with Bellamy was that, for all he was smooth with casual flings and hookups, in terms of his crush he was really, truly, staggeringly incompetent. He also— and this was the worst part— chose to air all his suffering on Miller. Had Miller known that inviting Bellamy to tag along to lunch with Monty’s best friend would result in The Worst Crush of All Time Ever,™ he would have sent Bellamy far away instead. Like, to Colombia, or Germany, or Australia, or anywhere that wasn’t the little café where they met Clarke Griffin.

He’d noticed Bellamy checking her out when she had come in, looking flushed from a day spent with preschoolers. Her hair had been in flyaway wisps, and there were streaks of paint all over her clothes, and even across one cheek. Monty had jumped up to hug her, and Bellamy had greeted her with little more than a grunt, and that was around the point Miller was screwed. Bellamy and Clarke had spent the entire meal squabbling, arguing over everything from Rory’s best boyfriend on Gilmore Girls to Renaissance Art. They’d exchanged insults, griped, and snarked, and then Clarke had to go, and then Monty fell about laughing, and then Bellamy slammed his face on a table and groaned “she’s the worst.”

Thus had Bellamy’s ridiculous crush been conceived, and that was how Miller ended up at the receiving end of the following series of texts:

dude. dude. C just texted asking me to come over and help her paint her bedroom wtf do i do?

oh my god she’s wearing that stupid low-cut henley and like ridiculously short shorts and it’s too much why tf does the universe hate me?

oh fuck she just asked me what colour we should paint the room and i was just like BLUE bc she has her fckn luminous blue eyes fixed on me and i couldn’t concentrate so now we’re in the car going to home depot to buy blue paint do you think i’m being too obvious?

Miller scowled at the phone. This crush had been so much better before Bellamy and Clarke had gotten over themselves enough to admit to being friends. When they claimed to hate each other, at least Bellamy would just spend hours at a time detailing every argument he’d had with Clarke that day and explaining why she was wrong. It was annoying as fuck, and Bellamy’s heart-eyes had been clear as day, but at least Bellamy was oblivious to the crush. But within about six minutes of Bellamy and Clarke actually becoming friends, Bellamy had woken up and smelt the proverbial roses, and had spent the next year lamenting to Miller about his hopeless love.  
“Dude,” an exasperated Miller had said more than once, “just tell her.”  
Bellamy had just stared at him, given a slightly hysterical bark of laughter, and continued lamenting.

“Hey, I’m home!” Monty bent to plant a kiss on Miller’s forehead, and Miller welcomed the break from the horrors of Bellamy’s text angst.  
“How was your day?”   
Monty grinned, waving his phone. “I’ve been getting a play-by-play of Clarke’s desperate pining for like an hour.”  
Miller rolled his eyes. “Why,” he asked, “why are our best friends the two densest people on the planet?”  
Because that was of course the most irritating part of The Worst Crush of All Time Ever™ — it was completely unnecessary. Monty had been on the receiving end of the saga of Clarke’s irritating crush for as long as Miller had been putting up with Bellamy’s.  
“Check it out,” Monty handed Miller his phone, and out of some kind of sadomasochistic interest, Miller read the texts.

holy shit i just asked him to come help me paint my room and i don’t even need to paint my room what is wrong with meeeeeeeee???

he’s here omg i did not think this through

HE’S WEARING A TANK TOP HOW IS THIS FAIR????????

monty he picked blue paint omfg he knows how well it would contrast with my cream bedspread i think he might be perfect

holy fuck he’s painting aND HIS BICEPS ARE DOING THINGS TO ME AND DID I MENTION THE TANK TOP CAN YOU PLEASE JUST FCKN KILL ME!!?!?!!?!!?!?

“Remind me why we can’t just tell them they’re into each other?”

Monty smirked. “It’s more fun to see if they get there themselves.”

“The pining is so annoying,” groaned Miller, leaning his head against his boyfriend’s shoulder.

“Aw come on Nate,” Monty grinned, nudging him, “didn’t you pine after me?”

“For six days. Six days, Monty, before I got my shit together and asked you out like a functional human. These two idiots haven’t figured it out for a year!”

Monty sighed. “You really wanna put them out of their misery?”

“No, I want to put me out of mine.”

They screen-shotted the “greatest hits” texts of the Bellamy/Clarke pining saga and sent them to both of the lovestruck idiots simultaneously, waited for the read receipts to appear, and then they just kind of waited. 

“How long before we can go over there and see if it worked?” asked Monty, jiggling his leg.

“We’ve got to give them time to stare at their phones in incredulous disbelief, then to stammer at each other in disbelieving embarrassment, then to have their whole awkward conversation, and then to do disgusting things to each other that I really, really don’t want to be there for. So in short, not for like, I don’t know, ever.”

In the end, Monty snapped after forty-five minutes and hauled Miller to the car. They reached Clarke’s apartment, and Monty burst in (he had a spare key).

“Congratu- oh MY EYES!”  

Miller wisely decided to wait for the muffled shrieks and apologies and shuffling to stop before making his own entrance. 

He cocked an eyebrow. “Well.” 

Bellamy and Clarke, both clutching a sheet to cover them, grinned at him sheepishly, both with ruffled blue-paint-spattered hair and swollen lips and stupidly big smiles. 

“Hey Miller,” Bellamy said, pulling Clarke into his side, “how’s it going?” Clarke nosed his neck, and he bent down to kiss her forehead, beaming like Christmas came early.

“You’re welcome, jackass. Clarke.” 

She giggles. “Yeah, I guess we owe you guys.” She pecked Bellamy’s cheek, and they both beamed at each other, and, oh dear god, they nose-nuzzled. This was definitely the most disgusting thing Miller had ever seen.

“This is adorable,” said Monty, and Miller had to remind himself that opposites attract.

“You had both been utterly pathetic for long enough,” he grumbled, “now we can all live our lives.”

They both flushed when they looked at each other, shrugging slightly. “We were kind of oblivious,” Bellamy conceded, tracing incoherent patterns on Clarke’s arm.

“Well, I’m glad we got there eventually.” She kissed him again, then they both remembered that Miller and Monty were standing right there— seriously, Miller thought, right there— and they broke apart, apologetic and giggly.

It was gross and appalling, and yeah, okay, slightly adorable, but mainly disgusting. But hey, at least the crush was over.

“This is great,” Miller told Monty, kissing his cheek when they sat on the couch that evening. “No more pining and angsting and generally making my life a misery.”

“Ah, come on,” Monty poked him in the shoulder, “you’re gonna miss it a little bit.”

Miller’s phone buzzed at the same time. It was a selfie of Bellamy and Clarke, cuddling in bed, smirking at the camera— looking stupidly pleased with themselves for two people who had failed to communicate or understand emotion for a year— which Bellamy had just captioned with the 100 emoji several times.

Miller rolled his eyes. “Nah,” he said, “not even a little bit.”


	3. Neither One Prepared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on this tumblr prompt: "Idk if this is a prompt or not. But maybe a Prince!Bellamy and a Princess!Clarke meeting. I hope that's okay." As you can see, yes, it is a prompt!

Look, Bellamy knows that complaining about this seems ridiculous. He's gone from living off scraps and sleeping on the floor of a hovel to being wined and dined at an actual, honest-to-goodness palace. Complaining is absurd. He  _gets_ it. But his embroidered tunic itches, his hair looks ridiculous when it's slicked back, and nobles are even less pleasant up close and personal. 

"Are you sure you're paying attention, your highness?"

Bellamy scowls-- he's half-certain Kane just calls him that to annoy him-- but grunts in acknowledgement.

"The party from Arkadia arrive tomorrow," Kane continues, "and it is imperative that the meeting goes smoothly. If successful, we'll have cemented a peace treaty that's been years in the making, ensuring prosperity and new trading prospects throughout the kingdom."

Bellamy wipes a palm over his face. "And if we don't?"

Kane smiles, tightly, and swallows. 

"Then I get to test out your new army," Miller says, nudging Bellamy and grinning.

Bellamy snorts at his friend-- okay, getting to appoint him Chief Guard was a definite perk-- and Kane looks exasperated.

"Your highness," he says through gritted teeth, "this is important."

 _Not important enough to find someone actually qualified to handle this_ , is what Bellamy thinks. What he says is simply "sorry, of course."

Kane keeps him in the meeting for another four hours, giving him a briefing about exactly how to interact with each and every member of the Arkadian delegation, and Bellamy kind of hates them all by proxy by the end of it. 

"Laugh all you want," he says sulkily when Octavia teases him about his pout, "you don't have to do shit."

"Oh lighten up, Bell," his sister says, jostling his shoulder, "this is good remember?"

He feels the fondness unfurl in his chest when he looks at his sister. This is good. She's not going to starve anymore, he's not spending his days in a haze of worry that someone will break into the hovel and snatch her away. _This is good_ , he tells himself, and resolves to grin and bear it.

***

His resolve shatters about two hours after the Arkadia delegation arrives and he catches Octavia holding one of their men firmly by the lapels as she kisses him.

"O!" he yells, outraged, "what are you _doing_?"

"Him," she grins, pulling back without letting go of the man, "or at least I was going to be!"

Bellamy glares at the man, who is very tall and very broad and very dazed. "Who the hell are you?"

"Bell," hisses Octavia, "back off!"

"There you are Lincoln! I was looking for you."

Bellamy turns sharply to see who's spoken. The girl is shorter than he is, and is now regarding him with inquisitive blue eyes, dressed like a noblewoman. For a moment, he thinks she's wearing a crown, but no, it's just her golden braids arranged around her head. 

"Sorry my lady," says Lincoln sheepishly, "I was, ah..." he grinned at Octavia, and Bellamy felt his fist curl, "detained."

Octavia's answering smirk is wolfish, and Bellamy's about to start yelling again, when the blonde girl says: "you move fast, I'm impressed!" and holds out her hand to shake Octavia's.

"Excuse me?" Bellamy splutters, "why are you encouraging this?"

The girl stares at him, eyebrow raised, surprised. "Who are you?"

"I'm her brother," he snaps, "and I don't want her gallivanting around with strange, potentially dangerous men."

"Shut  _up_!" Octavia cries, but Bellamy ignores her.

"I'll have you know that Lincoln is the least dangerous man I've ever known!" the blonde snaps back, crossing her arms. "Well, except when he has to be."

"It's alright," Lincoln mutters, "I am a bit strange."

"Let's go!" says Octavia, grabbing Lincoln's arm and marching off.

"O, get back here!"

She ignores him. Of course she does.

"Oh let her go," says the girl, exhaling slightly. She shoots him a tentative smile. "I know, you've got the whole protective-elder-brother thing going on, but you've got to let her have some space you know."

Bellamy glowers at her. "When I want familial advice from a meddlesome noblewoman, I'll ask." His tone is scathing, and the girl flinches for a second, before recovering herself.

"You're obnoxious," she snaps, "truly you are. I don't know what crawled up your backside and died but you don't have to take it out on strangers."

"As a stranger, isn't it your prerogative not to stick your nose in my business?"

"Lincoln is my business!"

"And Octavia's mine!"

"Well, I'll have you-- oh, hello Mother."

Bellamy turns sharply to see Kane walk in with a firm-looking woman in a coronet.

"Ah, Bellamy," says Kane, sounding as though he wishes very much he were dead, "I see you've already met our guest of honour."

Bellamy glances at the blonde girl who is staring at him, eyes widening with a mounting sense of horror.

"My ladies, may I present Bellamy Blake, crown prince of Faktor." He turns to Bellamy. "Your highness, may I present our Arkadian visitors, Queen Abigail Griffin, and her daughter, Princess Clarke."

***

The negotiations are a fresh hell, to the likes of which Bellamy has never been exposed before. The princess is infuriating, with an opinion on everything, and something about her manner makes Bellamy want to disagree at every turn.

"We should open up trading borders with Trikrura," Clarke insists, "it would double both our kingdoms' income!"

"Absolutely not!" Bellamy retorts, slamming his hand on the table, "everyone knows that Trikrurans can't be trusted-- they're pillagers!"

"They haven't attacked Faktor for a decade!"

He feels the heat rush to his face as a flurry of manic recollections flicker behind his eyes: whirling swords, splatters of blood....his mother.... _your sister your responsibility_.... "Exactly how much damage do you want them to do princess?" he yells.

Kane coughs and Bellamy scowls at him, slumping back in his chair.

Clarke looks a little stunned, but she sets her jaw. "We can return to this later."

They do, three days later, and they yell even more.

***

There's a welcoming banquet that night in honour of the peace negotiations. Bellamy has Kane on his right, Octavia on his left, and Clarke straight opposite. Octavia is having some kind of eye-contact based conversation Lincoln, who turns out to be Clarke's bodyguard, and Miller is grinning at Bellamy, amused.

"How are you enjoying your stay?" Octavia asks between bites of food. 

"It's been very pleasant, thank you," Clarke answers, prim. 

Bellamy snorts into his goblet, and Octavia kicks him under the table. "I'd hate to see what it looks like when you're having a _bad_ time, princess," he remarks.

Clarke scowls into her plate.

He thinks that's the end of it, but a pea bops him on the head a few minutes later. He glances up sharply, but she's chewing methodically, not even looking in his direction.

***

The next days meetings aren't heated, but they are _boring_. Kane and Queen Abigail are presenting their proposals for the treaty, and Bellamy wishes he was anywhere else. 

"If we were to construct a new road," Abby is saying, "we'd like Faktor to pay three-quarters of the cost, seeing as Arkadia would be sacrificing considerably more land."

"All due respect, my lady, but Arkadia is substantially more well-off. We'd be happy to supply labour, but in terms of material cost, I'm not sure how we'd foot the bill in time to complete the project on schedule," says Kane, through a grit-toothed smile.

Abby blinks at him. "Were I in your position, I'd levy a tax," she says, unfazed.

Bellamy sits up. "No."

Kane and Abby both turn to look at him. Kane looks strained, Abby....well, he can't really tell, so he doesn't dwell on it.

"The taxes are already debilitating enough on the people," he explains, trying not to stammer, "raising them further would leave half the kingdom destitute."

A small furrow appears in Abby's brow, and for the first time Bellamy registers some resemblance between the Queen and her daughter. "It might perhaps pose some...immediate financial strain," her tone is unnervingly measured, clinical, "but consider the long-term economic benefits to the kingdom. Faktor would be extremely prosperous."

Bellamy feels his hand clench under the table. "In the long-term, many of our people will already have  _died_ of starvation!"

"What about a two-thirds payment," Clarke interjects, low, measured. Bellamy's immediate reaction is to round on her, but he stops when he hears what she's saying. "It would still be a fair division compared to the distribution of land, and be less expensive for Faktor. You could raise the money by lessening a subsidy rather than adding an entirely new tax."

"That's...that may work," Bellamy says. They don't make eye-contact. The discussion continues, and soon he's arguing with her about the amount of labour that should be assigned to the project. 

Faktorans won't have to face another tax all the same.

***

The Arkadian delegation has been staying for a week the first time Bellamy finds himself alone with her since their first encounter. He's coming into the library, his favourite part of the palace, and stops short because she's sitting there, sketching in his favourite window-seat.

She looks up, and flushes slightly. "Oh. Hello."

Bellamy snorts in spite of himself. "I'll get out of your way, don't worry."

He starts his awkward retreat back to the door, but she clears your throat. "You can-- you should stay," she smiles slightly, "this is your library after all."

"Wish it felt like it," he says before he can stop himself.

"Why doesn't it?" she asks, though he can tell from her tone she's being more polite than curious. 

"You know why. Everyone does." 

She smiles wryly but doesn't deny it. The story of King Shumway's mad dash for an heir wasn't exactly a secret. Nobody was really supposed to talk about the fact that the closest heir he could track down was a peasant boy from a nearby village, just weeks before he died, but of course everyone did. Bellamy still feels like a boy playing dress-up, the velvet robes and golden chains too grand for the tailor boy he was raised as.

"How are you adjusting?" she asks.

"I'm not," he says, gruff. "I mean. It's a...a change. It's not-- I'm glad this happened, for Octavia's sake. It's a better life than I could ever have given her."

"You're giving a better life to her now," she says softly.

He feels himself flush at that, and runs a hand through his hair. "I didn't really do anything. They found me, I just sort of went with it."

She raises an eyebrow. "You're running a kingdom-- give yourself some credit."

That surprises him, but he shrugs it off. "Kane does most of the work, being regent and all. Don't tell him I said this, but I don't know what I'll do without him after the coronation." After the coronation, Bellamy will officially become King of Uniteria, and the mantle of responsibility will rest squarely on his shoulders. Well, even more than it already did. 

"If you don't mind me asking," she says after a while, "what happened to your parents?"

He tenses up for an instant, but something in her expression softens him. "My father was from the South-Eastern Isles. He died soon after I was born. Octavia's father left as soon as my mother got pregnant. And my mother," Bellamy smiles wryly, "she's how I ended up here. I think she was King Shumway's fifth cousin once-removed or something. She was killed in a Trikrura raid when I was fourteen."

"How old was Octavia?" 

"Five."

Clarke looks surprised. "Did you raise her by yourself?"

"More or less. I was a tailor, I earned enough to keep us both fed and clothed and housed. Mostly."

She furrows her brow, silent a moment before speaking. "My father died three years ago." She tugged absently on a loose end of hair, that Bellamy for some reason wants to tuck behind her ear. "It wasn't as-- I mean you were-- I was never in  _trouble_ because of it, I mean," she snorts, "I was a princess. But." She chews her lip. "I miss him, so much."

"I understand that," he says. A beat passes. "What are you drawing?

"Hmm? Oh!" She swallows slightly, tilting her sketchbook so that he can see it. It's a rendering of the marble bust perched atop the bookcase, a good one. He glances at her for permission before prying it gently from her grip and flipping through the pages. Most of them are sketches like that one, various objects that have caught her eye. He snorts at a couple of caricatures of her mother-- giving speeches, eating dinners, sitting on thrones-- and doodles of made-up animals. Then he reaches the portraits. They're all done in charcoal, and none of them have been posed for-- all are natural snapshots of how she sees someone in the moment.

He stops short at one that is achingly familiar-- head tipped back in a laugh, hands flung up in surprise, hair drawn mid-swish. "Octavia," he croaks.

"Yeah. I uh, I hope you don't mind."

"It's beautiful," he says and means it, "it's-- it's perfect."

"Then keep it."

He stares at her. "What?"

She's blushing now. "That is, well-- if you really do like it, it's yours."

He grins. "Only if I get this one of your mother as a gargoyle too."

***

"That one's The Swan," he says, pointing at the cluster of stars.

Clarke wrinkles her nose. "It doesn't really look like a swan."

He nudges her shoulder. "Humour me."

She grins at him. "Fine. Show me The Bear-- I have yet to see a single constellation that actually looks like a bear!"

Bellamy sighs dramatically. "You're a philstine."

"And you're a nerd!" she counter gleefully.

"You've spent too long with Octavia."

Clarke is saying something in protest but then she shivers, and Bellamy remembers suddenly how bitingly cold the night air is. "You okay?" he asks.

She nods, smiling, but he strips his coat off and hands it to her anyway. "This really isn't necessary," she says, but is snuggling into it as he drapes it round her shoulders.

"Relax. Besides, I'm a _prince_. I'm sure giving-garments-to-damsels-in-distress is part of my job description."

"Hey, who's distressed? I'm not distressed!"

***

The negotiations conclude successfully after two further weeks. Bellamy's still not excited about the coronation, but he's less apoplectic. Queen Abigail announces she will be abdicating soon, and that Clarke will succeed her.

He shoots the Princess a smile across the room, an actual one that says  _I hope you're okay with this, but congratulations_. 

But anyway, he's about to be King, Clarke's about to be a Queen, and Uniteria and Arkadia will finally to co-operate. He'll have to see a lot of her, he knows, seeing as there'll be so many conferences and state visits and whatnot. The tinge of sadness he feels at the negotiations's end, therefore, is inexplicable. 

She hugs him when they sign the final treaty, when Kane and Abby and the advisors have cleared the room.

No one is surprised when Octavia comes in later and finds Bellamy has Clarke crowded against a wall, hands tangled in each other's hair and kissing languidly, adoringly. 

"You weren't exactly subtle to begin with," is all she says with a raised eyebrow when the two break apart, lips swollen and eyes blown wide.

"Well," says Clarke, tucking herself easily into Bellamy's side, "I guess we'll just stop trying to be."

He kisses the top of her hair, unable to stop the beam spreading across his face. 

***

She has to return to Arkadia the next day, and Bellamy is miserable, and Miller and Octavia tease him mercilessly, though Octavia is already pining for Lincoln. 

"May we meet again," Bellamy says as he helps Clarke into the carriage.

"Oh don't be so dramatic," Clarke says, though her eyes are suspiciously watery, "you're not getting away any time soon." She ducks to kiss him from the window, and yeah-- Bellamy's not going anywhere.

***

The kingdoms of Arkadia and Faktor unite into the Kingdom of Nova when King Bellamy and Queen Clarke are married months after their respective coronations. 

"It was a very strategic decision," Clarke explains as Bellamy traces incoherent patterns on her arm, "it solved so many border disputes."

"Doubled the size of the military," Bellamy adds as Clarke nuzzles into his neck, smiling.

"Finally brought unity to the land," she murmurs into his neck."

Miller snorts. "Yes, I'm glad you too idiots made such a rational, politically beneficial marriage."

"It wasn't anything to do with the fact that you missed banging each other too much to live in separate kingdoms," Octavia chimes in.

Bellamy lets it slide this once, because Clarke's planting kisses on his jaw, and the kingdoms are united, and Octavia's laughing.

And yeah, perhaps becoming royalty hasn't been all bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it!! Kudos/Comments sustain my soul. I'm accepting prompts on [tumblr](http://kingedmundactually.tumblr.com/ask)


	4. Dans Mes Veines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d have liked to say he wasn’t heartbroken, because how fucking stupid would that be? Parisian sunlight and European springtimes, pink-tipped curls and wolfish laughs...these were never supposed to be the stuff of heartbreak. But there he sat: Bellamy Blake, 24, Boston. Heartbroken. 
> 
> (Bellamy. Clarke. Paris.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on this prompt from [Wind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookwormswillruletheword/gifts) : Listen to [Nashe Si Chadh Gayi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoCwa6gnmM0). Get the bellarke feels. Mash the two together.
> 
> Feel free to correct my likely awful French

Bellamy wouldn’t say she stood out to him, not immediately. The whole scene seemed to blend together to him, like a watercolour. The lyrics to the song playing were indistinguishable, and people were moving too fluidly to really allow one person or another to catch his eye. Instead, he leaned back against the bar counter, the marble cooling the sweat where it stuck his t-shirt to his back. The sunlight glinted off the Seine and into his eyes, making the whole view look like a lens flare, so really he didn’t even _see_ the girl until she launched out of the crowd in a whirlwind of blonde hair and impossibly short ripped denim shorts, and stopped right next to him, leaning over to yell at the bartender.

“Loïc! De l’eau!”

The bartender shoved a jug of water at her, cold enough that condensation ran down the sides in rivulets. She didn’t bother with a glass, just tipped her head back and pour the water in a steady stream, chugging half the jug before shoving it back, looking as pleased as though she’d just finished a keg stand.

“Merci!” she grinned as the bartender shook his head and turned away. She looked like she was going to spring back to the dance floor, but she paused, and turned to look at him. He got a better look at her then--the ends of her hair were dyed hot pink, her Radiohead shirt had the bottom half ripped off so he could see her navel.

The girl leaned back slightly. “Qui est ce mec, Loïc?” She grinned wolfishly, “il est craquant, n’est pas?” 

The bartender tutted at her, and Bellamy smirked slightly, glad that his pretty rudimentary French helped him translate _who’s this dude? isn’t he hot?_ fairly easily. “Merci pour le compliment.”

She raised her eyebrows but seemed unfazed that he’d overheard her. “Puis-je détecter un accent?” She paused a moment. “American?”

He laughed. “Am I that obvious?”

She grinned. “Takes one to know one.” Sure enough, her English bore no trace of the French lilt.

Bellamy raised his hands as though in defeat. “Boston, you got me.”

“You got a name, Boston boy?”

He bit back a grin because the girl talked like she was tough, like she expected him to be intimidated as she leaned into his space. “Bellamy. Name like that, is it any wonder I had to learn French?”

She chuckled and stuck her hand out. “Clarke.”

He shook, but she didn’t let go, instead laced their fingers together. She tugged, not hard but still insistent. “Wanna dance?”

And fuck it, it was Paris and Bellamy had knocked back a beer and the sunlight glinted in Clarke’s hair so he let her pull him onto the wooden deck. It was the kind of dancing that wasn’t really dancing so much as touching, constant, electric touching, a mesh of bodies writhing and moving together, sharing heat and tanging the air with sweat.

If Bellamy hadn’t noticed Clarke before, it was hard to notice anything else as they danced. She seemed to let the music pulse through her, letting it guide the sway of her hips and the curve of her arms. His hands spread across nearly the entire breadth of her back as he pressed her close enough that he could feel every one of her movements against his chest.

The sky was purpling like a bruise and the first of the streetlights had flickered to life by the time they’d finally abandoned the club and she pressed him against the brick wall of an alleyway and kissed him, hard and without any trace of tentatively or shyness. She pulled back and tilted her head to the side, allowing Bellamy to trail sucking open-mouthed kisses up the column of her neck, making her gasp, and when he grazed her jaw with his teeth, she curled her fingernails into her back.

They made it back to his apartment in a haze of sweat-slicked skin and stolen kisses, and they didn’t stop touching each other even as they shucked off clothes and shove aside sheets. Clarke murmured things to him in a steady stream of English and French, her breath hitching every time his mouth explored a new part of her, and her hands returned the favour. Hands tangled in hair, lips and teeth clashed, skin burned against skin. They were both out of breath when they finished, and Clarke chuckled softly as he played with the pink ends of her hair, tracing incoherent patterns against his arms with her fingertips.

***

He wasn’t surprised to see her dressed and about to leave when he woke up, and she didn’t appear uncomfortable when she realised he was awake.

“Nice meeting you Bellamy,” and bent down to drop a kiss on his cheek.

He smirked lazily back at her, sitting up languidly so that the sheets slid down his bare chest and pooled in his lap. “Back at you.”

She waggled her fingers in a farewell and left, the door swinging shut behind her. Bellamy figured he could spend the day actually being productive now that he’d had his taste of the stereotypical Parisian experience. It was sunny outside and getting dressed and heading out really wasn’t a burden, not when he got a table in the shade at a café that made its coffee just right, not when the words came easily that day, pouring forth from his fingers to his laptop like they were on a rope uncoiling endlessly from within him. He should probably have been more annoyed at how fucking _typical_ this was, his artistic juices being stimulated by the glittering European summer, him, a writer, sitting there completing the layperson’s imaging of Paris like the final brushstroke of a painting. All he really needed was a striped sweatshirt and a beret at this point. And yeah, he really couldn’t give a fuck here. That was new for him, strange, but there was no point in being jaded when there was no one around who’d notice, so he let it in, let the romance of the city seep into him with the sunlight.

He didn’t see her straight away--he was tilting his head back to catch the late afternoon light with his eyes closed, only opening when he felt a shadow fall across his face.

“You’re pretty, you know that?”

Somehow he was no less surprised seeing her here than he was to see her go that morning. “Fancy seeing you here. And I think that’s my line.”

She laughed. “You’re a dude, it doesn’t count.”  
  
“Hey, you already put out, my dick and I have no ulterior motives left.”

To his delight, she grinned, laughing again. “It counts when I say it,” she pulled out the chair opposite him and flopped down, “I have a very discerning eye.”

“Is that right?”

She tossed her hair over her shoulder, attempting to look pompous. “Je suis une _artiste_ , monsieur!”

He huffed a laugh. “Fuck, and I thought _I_ was the biggest cliché in this city.” 

Clarke’s eyes flickered down to his laptop and then to the leather journal next to it. “A writer, huh?”

He shrugged, going for casually self-deprecating but he guessed she could probably detect his nervousness. “ _Aspiring_ writer.”

She whistled. “Damn, that really is clichéd. Wait wait wait, let me guess. Parents disapproved so you ran away from the desk job to come to La Ville Lumière live your dreams?”

“Nice try,” he said, “but no.”

Clarke looked curious but didn’t push it. She shrugged. “Never mind--that’s _my_ sob story.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yup,” she popped the _p_ , “my Mom wanted me to do pre-med. Lots of shit went down in my life, I had a massive meltdown my senior year of college, and came out to stay with my grandparents over here. Long story short, I ended up at art school here and never went back.” She laid back, looking almost satisfied with herself. It was a challenge.

“My Mom died six years ago and left me with sole custody of my sister,” he said, “my sister just started college. In Los Angeles.” He smiled wanly, leaving Clarke to piece together the rest.

Bellamy waited for the effusive sympathy that usually followed, but it didn’t come. 

“So you’re an empty nester?”

“It sounds weird when you say it like that.”

“Nope, I totally called it. You give off grumpy old man vibes, ya know?”

“I don’t know whether to be offended or to be concerned that you think that and still slept with me. Are grumpy old men a thing for you?”

She reached back to pull her hair into a ponytail. “Only when they’re cute.”

***

It felt inevitable that she would end up in his bed again that night, and after that, it really doesn’t stop. They burst into his room at the end of every day, tangled together, and after a few days, she stopped skipping out in the mornings.

“Someone’s got to show you Paris properly,” she told him one morning.

So she did. They did cheesy tourist stuff--she took him to the Louvre where they alternated marveling at the art and using dumb pick up lines on each other (“Are you a piece of art? Because I’d like to nail you to a wall.” “Baby you’re so fine you could make an impression on _Monet_.”), they kissed at the top of the Eiffel tower. She drew him too--she was never shy about doing it, she’d pull out her sketchbook sometimes, when the sun hit him a certain way, and he could feel her gaze tracing the lines of his face as though he was the paper she was drawing on. Sometimes she sketched when they were in bed, when his eyes were still heavy and his hair was a mess of curls.

He told her about his writing too, eventually stopped feeling self-conscious and started feeling excited as he’d describe the myths his book retold, argued about why the ancient stories of Greece and Rome mattered, told her about the things he’d want to see if he ever got to visit those places. She’d always smile as he spoke, ask him questions sometimes, but never seeming to believe there was anything unattainable or intangible about what he was saying. Whenever he kissed her, he wondered if that was what sunlight tasted like. 

Eventually, he told her the whole story. About the shouting, when Octavia announced she was leaving, about the venomous words, about the way that he’d _hurt_ when her fists had hit him, not because they were painful--though they _were_ \--but because it was _her_. With her lips Clarke traced the spots where his sister’s bruises had once decorated his face, and her eyes would glint furiously as she raked her hands through his hair and insisted that he _hadn’t_ deserved that.

“It’s so fucked up,” she said, “why the fuck doesn’t anyone see how much love you have to give?”

He wondered how Clarke knew that about him, wondered if it was because of the way he held her when she told him that her mother got her father killed, that she pushed her best friend away and then he was gone too. Maybe it was the way he’d watch her when she drew, her forehead furrowed and her lip worried in focus, looking at her and seeing an artist unaware that _she_ was the best masterpiece there was. 

***

He should probably have known the fallout was coming, because how could it not? Paris was magical, and even magic had to disappear at midnight, he fucking knew that. He’d had months, and they were months more than he deserved. It ended quietly, too quietly given the way it started, with the river, with dancing. 

“I have to go back,” he said, “O’s coming home.”  
“You shouldn’t go,” Clarke said, crossing her arms, not looking at him.

“I have to.”

“She _hurt_ you.”

“She’s been hurting her whole life, Clarke, I could give her that much.”

“You’ve been hurting too,” she said, “and you’ve already given her everything you have to give.”

“It’s just a couple of months. I’ll be back after summer. I’ll call you as soon--”

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“I don’t think it would be a good idea,” she sounded so measured, “for you to call. Once you’re gone.”

“Clarke--”  
  
“Bye, Bellamy.”

***

He’d have liked to say he wasn’t heartbroken, because how fucking stupid would that be? Parisian sunlight and European springtimes, pink-tipped curls and wolfish laughs...these were never supposed to be the stuff of heartbreak. But there he sat: Bellamy Blake, 24, Boston. Heartbroken. 

Octavia picked up on it, and she tried to find out who it was, who did this to her brother. He wouldn’t tell her. He may have forgiven her, but he wasn’t ready to let his sister give other people shit for breaking his heart.

He finishes the book. It would probably have been more romantic to finish it in Paris, by the glow of the evening light, but there’s been enough Parisian romance in his life to last him forever.

***

Bellamy would have thought people only got so many clichés in their life, but this was another one, and so unexpected it can hardly be called a cliché (so maybe it really does fall in his lot?). _This_ was Clarke Griffin, 22, formerly of Paris, hurtling at him, a blur of pink-and-gold, as he stepped out of his apartment. _This_ was Clarke Griffin, newly of Boston, slamming into him (hugging her was probably what it felt like to hug sunlight, fuck it, to _be_ sunlight), her tears hot on his neck.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so so sorry,” _this_ was her gasps coming like a chant, _this_ was her heart beating a tattoo right there, right next to his. _This_ was kissing her again, after a few weeks that felt like years, _this_ was knowing she would be there, warm against his skin that night, curled against him in the bed the next morning, _this_ was knowing that she wouldn’t leave. 

They never worked out who said “I love you” first, but it didn’t matter, not when the words were reciprocated so quickly, laughed into a mess of kisses and tears.

It wasn’t easy to figure out because she had a life in Paris that he didn’t want to tear her away from; he had Octavia who she couldn’t tear him away from, not for long enough, but they did it. It was different this time round; French avenues and lazy mornings made way for crackle-screened Skype calls and barely surmountable time differences. Clarke saw more of Bellamy with glasses lopsided and shirts haphazardly unbuttoned than with languid smirks and sun-dappled curls; by the time Bellamy got to speak to her Clarke had almost always traded in artfully distressed shorts and vintage t-shirts for sleep shirts (some of which she’d stolen from him). It was messy and exhausting. It was pretty much perfect.


	5. Strikhedonia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay so probably a lot of what goes on falls out of the realm of best friend territory. She knows full well that most people either think they are dating or that they should be. Fuck, it’s impossible to not to notice Jasper’s new habit of referring to them as “mom” and “dad” (a habit that is quickly catching on amongst their friends). And if she’s being completely honest, Clarke is well aware that most of her feelings for Bellamy fall well outside anything resembling the platonic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on this prompt from [Jenny](http://of-flowers-and-sunshine.tumblr.com): Strikhedonia - The pleasure of being able to say “to hell with it”.

Perhaps the most surprising thing was that he could surprise her at all. She’d seen him pushed to the brinks of human endurance, she’d seen just how far he’d go to help the people he loved survive, she’d seen just how raw, how broken he was behind his careful veneer, she’d seen Bellamy Blake inside-out as only an apocalypse could do. But he surprised her. He _laughed_. It was a startling sound, coming from him, breathless and delighted, and it warmed her at her core. 

“We did it,” he said, “we really fucking did it.”

Raven whoops, and suddenly everyone bursts into peals of laughter and excited yelps. 

Clarke glances back at Bellamy who meets her gaze with a smile that makes her chest ache. “You saved all our asses, huh?”

She scoffs at that. “Can we please not pretend we weren’t all involved? This is about the millionth time we’d have been dead without Raven,” she pauses a moment, “and you.”

He snorts lightly. “Jesus, I try to pay you a compliment--”

“I mean it. You did good Bellamy.”

She recognizes the duck of his head and the gruff clearing of his throat as an attempt to hide his blush, and she bites back a smile.

“So,” he says, “what’re you gonna do? Now that you--we stopped the reactors?”

He sounds light, almost careless, but this is Bellamy, and he’s never been careless about anything in his life. Clarke knows what he’s really asking, and she feels a prickle of guilt that he feels like he has to.

“I don’t know,” she says, and reaches to lace her fingers with his on an impulse, “but I’m staying. I’m staying here.”

Bellamy’s throat bobs. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

***

She knows when he’d asked her what she’d do, it was subjective, but Clarke begins to wonder. There’s a lightness that comes with shedding the burden of saving the world; it’s giddying but also disorienting, like she can’t quite stay upright. 

“It’s just...I’m so used to everything being _huge_. Every single thing I’m doing having immeasurable consequences and stuff. I don’t think I know how to...” she grapples at the air, searching for a word.

“Downsize?” Bellamy suggests, the corner of his lips quirking up in a smirk.

She snorts, and not for the first time feels a surge of gratitude that he _gets_ it. And there’s no reason he should. She meant it--he had as much responsibility for stopping the apocalypse as she did, he shouldered the big stuff right with her. But Bellamy had taken to the new lifestyle easily, like he was made for it. And in a sense, he was. He was still a leader--he directed most of the construction of their new settlement, he and Clarke had been voted onto the Council--but he seems to like the rest of it too. He tells stories to the kids, the same stories, Clarke knows, that he used to tell Octavia. She can tell he misses his sister, and she feels a flush of anger every time she thinks about Octavia _not_ thinking about what she’s doing to Bellamy. But it’s hard to focus on that, watching him as soft and happy as she’s ever seen him with the kids staring at him, rapt with attention. Sometimes, the youngest ones scrabble at his legs, and he scoops them into his lap, easy as anything, holding them there with the band of his arm. 

He does other things too, she notes. He doesn’t hesitate to go work on the rovers with Raven (“None of us will ever be as good as her,” he admits with a shrug, “but it doesn’t hurt to help out”), or to slide into a bench at the bar next to Miller, the two of them talking quietly, hiding their wry smiles behind the lips of their bottles.

It’s never that simple for Clarke. It always feels _wrong_ , to let the stiffness in her back uncoil. They’re her friends, she knows that, but there seems something alien about just collapsing next to one of them by the campfire after months of high-pressure strategy meetings and wondering which one would be the next to die.

Except for Bellamy. It’s easy with Bellamy, but then again, it’s not like anything’s changed--it’s _always_ been easy with Bellamy. She’s never really questioned it, but there’s always been an unquestioned comfort to be found in him. It’s not like he made her forget that there was an impending apocalypse or anything, but there was always a feeling when he’d glance at her, just checking in, or say something in that low, quiet voice that only she could hear. It was a feeling, of _togetherness,_ a sense of being understood, and Clarke feels wildly grateful it’s still there. She’d never given it much thought before, never had the time, but retrospectively she wonders if there had been an underlying fear there the whole time, the worry that if they succeeded, if they made it out of this apocalypse alive, all Clarke would have left would be a shell of herself.

But there’s a serenity in seeing Bellamy smile so openly, smiling at _her_ like he still recognizes her, still gets her, and she’s glad of it. And Clarke’s not an idiot, she’s already accepted that hearing _home_ and thinking _Bellamy_ isn’t exactly a standard part of the co-leader package. And honestly? Yeah, she’s pretty sure this is somewhere outside the realm of “best friend” territory too. And he _is_. Her best friend. She figured that out a long time ago, and she’s glad of it, having him there. She likes exchanging quick glances that speak volumes with him in Council meetings, likes talking shit at each other sitting in the sunlight-dabbled leaves scattered across the forest floor, likes being able to crawl into his tent when the nightmares get too much and use his chest as a pillow, the rise and fall of his breathing lulling her to sleep. 

Okay so probably a _lot_ of what goes on falls out of the realm of best friend territory. She knows full well that most people either think they _are_ dating or that they should be. Fuck, it’s impossible to _not_ to notice Jasper’s new habit of referring to them as “mom” and “dad” (a habit that is quickly catching on amongst their friends). And if she’s being completely honest, Clarke is well aware that _most_ of her feelings for Bellamy fall well outside anything resembling the platonic. 

“I’m taking the rover on a supply run,” she glances up from her sketchbook to where Bellamy’s leaning on her doorway, “you wanna come?”

She smiles. “Yeah, hang on, let me just get my stuff.”

He nods and plops onto her desk chair to wait. 

Over the last couple of months, denying her feelings felt pointless, because it’s not like she was going to _act_ on them. And fuck, it’s not like she was pining--she just didn’t have time for that, didn’t devote much thought to anything except what to _do_. The rest was all arbitrary detail: Clarke Griffin, eighteen years old, in love with Bellamy Blake, blonde, blue-eyed. 

“Okay, I’m set.”

It’s different now. She worries her lip as they walk to the rover (another good thing about Bellamy: he doesn’t feel the need to fill every silence with chatter; he’s just as happy with companionable silence). Part of the dizzying _lack_ of pressure is the sudden rush of all her emotions, complex and otherwise, to the forefront of her brain. It’s harder to detach her feelings for Bellamy from _Bellamy_ , now that there’s no impending apocalypse to distract her. Granted, it’s probably a little fucked up to be so bad at feelings that you miss the literal end of the world, but Clarke’s  never pretended to be tidy. She glances sidelong at him as he drives. The sunlight practically illuminates his profile, freckles spangled across his face like the constellations he loves pointing out to the kids. 

“Raven says to look out for anything we think could be used in a projector,” he says, “she wants to build one of those home cinema things. Sounds great,” he snorts, “except I have no idea what the fuck is supposed to go in a projector.”

Clarke grins. “It’s nice,” she says, “not having to scrounge up shit to survive on all the time. Now all we risk is an eternity of subpar entertainment.”

“That’s still potentially lethal,” Bellamy points out, “seeing as how that just means we’d all only have Monty’s moonshine to rely on.”

“I cannot believe he’s _still_ brewing that stuff,” she marvels, “of all the things to survive the apocalypse, _that’s_ the one.”

Bellamy chuckles and Clarke feels a pressure she didn’t even know was there uncoiling in her chest. It probably is too early to be joking about it, but it doesn’t seem so barbed and vulnerable between them. They can deal with it. 

Maybe she should have told him already. Again, nothing’s stopping her, and hapless pining has never really been Clarke’s style. It should be simple, an “I like you” (though that hardly covers it), perhaps a brush of the lips, and he’ll reciprocate or he won’t.

“The bunkers a couple miles out,” he says, “should be another twenty minutes.”

She peers out the window at the scenery blurring past. It strikes her as strange that the landscape really hasn’t changed even though the whole world has. That’s what gets her. Change. It’s not a fear of rejection that stops her from blurting her feelings to Bellamy. It’s a fear of what would happen _after_ , after she fucked up what they already have. The apocalypse may be over, but she knows if she screws this up she’ll be a kite a untethered in a storm. She _needs_ Bellamy, needs his safety, his consistency, needs him. And yeah, she knows he needs her to. It would be unfair to both of them to make it awkward, to leave them to deal with themselves alone. Still, she can’t help but wonder what it would be like to be with someone. Not someone. Him. To be with _him_. She already knows it wouldn’t be anything like she’s had before. Finn and Lexa were quick-bursting fireworks, all-consuming for a moment then suddenly gone. Bellamy...well for the first time there was a chance for something that lasted. It was a little overwhelming, the knowledge that any relationship she had from now one wouldn’t have a time bomb attached with one or the other of them waiting to die at any moment, that any “I love you” could come at its own pace now instead of being extorted by the panic of death, a realisation delivered all too late in a crushing blow.

It’s a lot.

Bellamy stops the rover smoothly and they climb out to the ruins of the old scrapyard. Neither of them are really tech-savvy enough to actually identify what most things are, so they end up turning it into a competition over who can collect the biggest, shiniest parts, and by the time they pile everything into the back, she’s laughing so hard her sides hurt.

“It’s nice, seeing you laugh,” he says, gruff.

“In general or?”

“Well yeah, in general. But you had your thinking face on all day today, I was beginning to worry those frown lines would stick.”

She snorts. “Shut up.”

 _You won’t lose him_ a voice in her head whispers, _not over this._

Clarke thinks about it. “We survived an apocalypse, right?” she muses.

Bellamy’s eyes flicker to her face. “Last I checked.”

A smile tugs at her lips and she turns her head to the window. “So we could survive pretty much anything.”

She can’t see him, but when he speaks again, his voice is impossibly fond. “Yeah, Clarke, I reckon we could.”

***

The decision comes without much fanfare, she sort of settles into it by the evening.

“Walk?” she offers, inclining her head.

He’s sitting at a table with Harper and Monty, and they give no indication they think it’s strange, so he excuses himself and joins her. 

They don’t really speak until they’re outside the gates of the settlement, the sign upon which its name, Nova, is etched falling behind them. 

“I realized I haven’t seen the glowing forest in forever,” she remarks conversationally.

“It is one of the nicer relics of a nuclear-apocalypse-induced radioactive pandemic.”

She bumps his shoulder and he grins at her. Her heart does a little somersault, not just because it’s gorgeous--which it is--or because she loves him--which she does--but because he looks _happy_. 

“So here’s the thing,” she says when they reach a log that’s good for sitting on, “I didn’t just call you out here to gaze at the glowing trees.”

He cocks his head at her but lets her speak.

Clarke swallows. “Okay. So.” She wets her lip. Apparently _deciding_ to confess her feelings isn’t the same as actually confessing them. “It’s been...for a while, I’ve felt like...” she almost winces at how fucking _awkward_ she sounds. Her eyes flit to Bellamy, and the bastard is smirking at her. _Smirking_.

“Oh, to hell with it,” she mutters and then fists her hands in his shirt to tug him to her. His noise of surprise is muffled by the press of her lips on his, and he’s frozen with shock. After a few seconds of his not doing anything, Clarke begins to think she’s horribly misjudged the situation, but then his hands are on her waist, pulling her closer into him, and his mouth opens, parting her lips with a sweep of his tongue. He tastes of salt and mint and Bellamy, and he’s warm and solid and real in her arms and she loves him.

“Um, yeah,” she says when they finally pull apart (and it’s hardly even that--he tips his forehead down so it rests against hers, and they stay holding each other), “that’s...the sum of what I was trying to say.”

Bellamy’s tongue darts out as he licks his lips. “That was very eloquent.”

She has to snort at that, burying her face in his chest so he can’t see her flush.

“For the record,” he says, his hands tracing patterns on her back, “I’ve been pretty much in love with you forever now.”

He can probably feel her gulp against his chest when she looks up at him, but she can’t bring herself to care. “Forever huh?”

Bellamy grins. “Well I have to admit, that grounder chic phase did test me--”  
  
“Bellamy--”

“Like what was up with the hair? Why did you think dreadlocks were a good idea?”

“Oh my god, shut up!”

“You were orange, Clarke. _Orange_.”

“I hate you.”

Bellamy chuckles softly and presses his mouth to her head. “And to think,” his breath stirs her hair, “after I remained steadfast during your _orange_ phase.”

She groans and bats half-heartedly at his chest. 

It’s only later, when they’re in the rover almost back home, her hand cradled in his over the glove compartment, that she turns to him.  
  
“Bell?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m pretty much in love with you too.”

Truth be told, she’s a lot more than _pretty much_ in love with him. She doesn’t say that now, but she will tell him. Someday. 

He ducks across to swipe a kiss to her cheek, and she smiles, ducking her head.

After all, they’ve got time.


End file.
